Jun 5, 2009 5:33 am US/Central
Slain Oak Forest Woman, Husband Had Troubled Past
Norberto Rodriguez Once Shot His Wife, Threatened To Do So Again
OAK FOREST, Ill. (Sun-Times Media Wire) ―
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Irma Rodriguez of Oak Forest was found brutally murdered in a car in Midlothian.
Oak Forest Police
Police won't name any suspects in
the brutal murder of an Oak Forest mother found stuffed in the trunk of her own car in south suburban Midlothian.
The SouthtownStar has unearthed troubling details about the husband she was divorcing, a man her neighbors and relatives have not seen in days, a convicted drug dealer who once shot her and threatened to do so again.
"He threaten to ... if I come back he'll shoot me again," Irma Rodriguez wrote on a 2001 petition for an emergency protection order. "I'm very fearful for my life and my children."
Oak Forest police acting Chief David DeMarco told the SouthtownStar officers had before been called to the Rodriguez home in the 15400 block of Alameda Drive, but would not say how many or what kinds of calls they responded to.
Norberto Rodriguez, 49, has not been named as a suspect in his estranged wife's disappearance and death.
In fact, Norberto Rodriguez has not been seen around the neighborhood in Oak Forest, his last known address, nor could he be reached at several phone numbers listed to his name.
No one has been charged, and the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force and Oak Forest police are keeping mum about their investigation, except to say they distributed fliers Thursday to dozens of homes around 148th Street and Kilpatrick Avenue.
DeMarco said police do not have any new developments. He does not know where Norberto Rodriguez is, emphasizing that police continue to gather as much evidence as they can.
Investigators are asking witnesses who might have seen someone driving Rodriguez's car -- a white 2002 Pontiac Grand Am with the license plate TITA 6 -- or walking away from the vehicle, specifically toward St. Damian Church near 155th Street and Long Avenue in Oak Forest, to call police.
In five years, Norberto Rodriguez went from Chicago Police officer to convicted heroin dealer.
During an argument about flowers an ex-girlfriend sent him for his birthday in 1997, he shot his wife through the hand.
Police said at the time Norberto Rodriguez threatened to kill himself and his wife during the confrontation.
Though Rodriguez was acquitted of all charges, including attempted first-degree murder, the incident cost him his job. He was fired in Dec. 1998.
The couple, married since 1994 and parents of a son born in 1995, moved to Oak Forest from Chicago.
In late 2001, Irma sought an emergency protection order at the Bridgeview courthouse against Norberto Rodriguez for herself, her daughter from her previous marriage and her younger son.
She wanted him banned from their Chicago home and from her job at Palos Community Hospital, and barred from taking their children.
And she wanted Rodriguez to surrender his firearms to local law enforcement.
"On Dec 2, 2001, my husband physically pick me up from the couch through my legs and dragged me out of the house and down the stairs and onto the sideway. He threaten to ... if I come back he'll shoot me again," she wrote on the request.
"I'm very fearful for my life and my children. I can't sleep, very nervous and scared."
Judge Daniel Riley immediately granted the emergency protection order. But when the case went back to court about three weeks later, records show Irma Rodriguez had it terminated.
It was the only time she sought protection in the courts.
And six months later, she bailed her husband out of jail on a federal drug charge.
Rodriguez was arrested in April 2002 with two other men in a scheme to transport four kilos of heroin from Los Angeles to Chicago for distribution.
Facing up to 10 years in prison, he pleaded guilty to one of the counts, possession of heroin with intent to deliver, for a 52-month-sentence in federal prison.
According to his plea agreement, Rodriguez said he was offered $10,000 to fly to Los Angeles on April 25, 2002, pick up a briefcase containing four kilos of heroin and drive it back in a rental car.
But he was stopped for speeding on April 29 in LaSalle County, and the briefcase containing four packs of heroin was discovered.
Rodriguez agreed to wear a wire, according to charging documents, and lead drug enforcement agents to the two other codefendants.
And he requested placement in a prison close to his family, records show.
Irma Rodriguez's neighbors said she drove the children to go see him.
Rodriguez was released from prison in Jan. 2007, according to the bureau of prisons.
In Sept. 2007, she filed for divorce, citing mental cruelty and irreconcilable differences.
Records show the couple had been haggling about money matters in recent months.
They were due back in court on June 2, the day Irma's body was discovered, shot multiple times, in the trunk of her Grand Am parked at 148th Street and Kilpatrick Avenue in Midlothian.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2009. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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